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Originally Posted by vxf
3) I think the parallel with music is very relevant. I think we all feel we should be able to listen to a song on an ipod when we buy the CD. Yet, for some reason, legislation treats music and books very differently.
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See, that's the thing. It is perfectly legal to make an ebook out of a paper copy. You can manually type it in, or use a scanner with OCR. That is perfectly legal, much in the same way you can legally make MP3s from a CD. What isn't legal is downloading a copy of an ebook that someone else made, just like it isn't legal to download MP3s that someone else made, regardless if you own a copy of the source. The illegality comes in when you give someone else a copy of something you do not own the rights to, or have permission to redistribute. The law is pretty clear, you can format shift, but you have to do the work yourself. The only time it becomes illegal to format shift, is if you have to break DRM, because breaking encoding or encryption is illegal under the DMCA.
Quote:
Originally Posted by vxf
5) I see plenty of hypocrisy. How many people find it wrong to download an ebook version of HP while owning a printed version, yet would have not problem lending/borrowing a printed book? I know the former is illegal while the latter is legal - but which one is more damaging to authors, which one robs them of compensation for their work?
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Lending a book doesn't create extra copies of the book though. For me it boils down to simply the legality of it.
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Originally Posted by vxf
Finally, I do apologize to those running the boards - whoever those people are. While I do not agree with your stance, it is YOUR boards and I do realize I need to respect your wishes in terms of what to post and what not to post. I have gotten a lot of good info about e-reading here and for that I am thankful.
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Their stance is pretty simple. It is illegal to redistribute copyrighted material without permission, and anyone who facilitates that is legally responsible. By not deleting any attempts to redistribute copyrighted works, mobileread would be breaking the law, and would also very potentially have their host terminate service to them. So, their options are stop anyone who tries to pass around pirated stuff, or get their servers shut down and have all sorts of legal trouble.